In many environments, a central operator communicates with, and receives visual signals and/or auditory signals from, two or more mobile or non-mobile communicators who are responding to, or relaying information on, one or more events in the field through a signaling channel associated (only) with that communicator. The event(s) may be a medical emergency or hazardous substance release or may be associated with continuous monitoring of a non-emergency situation. The visual and/or auditory signals may be displayed through time sharing of the displays received by the operator. However, this approach treats all such signals substantially equally and does not permit fixing the operator's attention on a display that requires sustained attention for an unpredictable time interval. This approach also does not permit the operator to quickly (re)direct attention to, and assign temporary priority to, two or more communicators, out of the sequence set by the time sharing procedure. This approach, by itself, does not provide information on the present location, present angular orientation and present environment of the communicator.
What is needed is a signal analysis and communication system that (1) accepts communication signals from multiple signal sources simultaneously, (2) permits a signal recipient to assign priority to, or to focus on, a selected audio signal source. Preferably, the system should allow determination of location and angular orientation of a person associated with a signal source and should permit visual, audible and/or electronic monitoring of one or more parameters associated with the health or operational fitness of the person. The system should also allow easy prioritization of a selected individual's audio and visual communication, while allowing other communication channels to be monitored in the background.